The Eighth Hungarian Tribe, 1983 (10. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1983-10-01 / 10. szám
City of Lafayette Cheers Kossuth in 1852 By ROBERT C. KRIEBEL Reprinted from Journal and Courier, Lafayette, Indiana, Friday, August 19, 1983 As Lafayette entered 1852, mindboggling changes in lifestyle were about to take place. The railroads, now built to the edge of town from Crawfordsville and Indianapolis, would be running by December, and there already had been a few short “demonstration rides” for town VIPs. AND THE Indiana Constitutional Convention of 1850-51 would soon cause massive changes in local government, the establishment of public schools, and laws pertaining to banking and scores of other aspects of Hoosier life. In January, 1852, too, the newspapers frequently reported on the U.S. visit of Louis Kossuth, an exiled Hungarian leader and freedom fighter who was a victim of Russian and Austrian interference Hungary was then allied with Turkey, and the U.S. was protecting the exiled government. "Kossuth hats” were in style; and Lafayette’s Kossuth Street evidently was given its name about this time. ON JAN. 20, 1852, Lafayette’s Evening Courier contained an editorial about Louis Kossuth which explains to modem readers why he was so revered in this country more than a century ago: “However much we may differ with any of our readers with regard to the object to be attained by the visit of Kossuth to this country, certainly none who have read his speeches, many of them made on the spur of the moment, without premeditation or preparation, can disagree with us in ascribing to him talent unsurpassed, if equaRed by any living man above the sod. “WHEN WE consider the fact that but a few years since he was entirely unacquainted with our vernacular tongue, or written language, that during his confinement in prison as a felon, with only one English grammar and a copy of Shakespeare, without the aid of instruction save that of his immortal genius, he undertook and accomplished the task of acquiring a perfect knowledge of one of the most complex, and consequently most difficult languages in the world? and the fact that he is apparently as familiar with the history and geography of the different nations of the earth, enlightened, civilized, or barbarian, as even historians themselves, we can but look upon the man with amazement. "BUT HIS extraordinary talent, his remarkable attainments in the knowledge of history, geography, the arts and sciences, and his perfect command of language in its most refined, classic and eloquent use, are not the great characteristics which distinguish him above the mass of our great men. “In nothing does he so far excel as in his moral virtues, his pure patriotism, his unbounded benevolence, his love of country and his devotion to the cause of freedom from oppression wherever found. “THESE QUALITIES, above all others, eminently fit him to be the great political Messiah of the age. And well has he already accomplished his mission. The monarchies of the Old World already feel his influence, while solitary and alone he pleads the cause of the oppressed, and proclaims with strains of irresistible eloquence, the heaven-born gift to man: Freedom to worship God! “BY HIM, even in this ‘land of the free and home of the brave,’ have been redkindled the fires of liberty, on altars where but a spark remained and that smothered by the mass of political corruption, intrigue and profligacy which characterize the age... “All classes look to the mission of Kossuth as fraught with woe to the oppressor, and weal to the oppressed. May the protecting wings of the guardian angel overshadow him and strengthen him in his mission as the political Messiah of the 19th century.” The applause for Kossuth died soon after, though. He returned to Europe, to live mostly in exile, controversy and frustration in England and Italy, until his death in 1894. T
